The Invisible Church

Robert Jenson writes, “We may note that Augustine’s teaching that the true members of the church are the predestined, who cannot now be enumerated, is the origin of the idea that the true church is ‘invisible,’ though this proposition itself should not be fathered on Augustine. The concept of the invisible church has occasioned little but trouble through theological history, and no use will be made of it in this work. The church is not an invisible entity; she is the, if anything, all too visible gathering of sinners around the loaf and cup. What is invisible is that this visible entity is in fact what she claims to be, the people of God.” HT Peter Leithart